Flights of Fantasy
by a certain slant of light
Summary: Mismatched, unrelated drabbles, including multiple pairings and characters. Primarily Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2, and Final Fantasy XII, and crossovers. Current drabble: Larsa, Luna, Penelo. ჯ romance, humor, gen. drabbles.
1. FFX2: BaralaiPaine

**Quintessential Author's Note**: Hello there! This is a series of mismatched drabbles. The only thing any of them have in common is that they're from Final Fantasy – most likely Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2, and Final Fantasy XII. They were all written for various reasons, but best bet is for some sort of challenge, or on a random whim. Either way, they're scattered about LiveJournal and until recently have not been available to the viewing public on FFN. But, finally, here they are for your enjoyment!

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Final Fantasy. This includes any division, sub-division, or bacterial strain of it. This applies to all current and upcoming chapters.

* * *

**Title**: Personal Justice**  
Series**: Final Fantasy X-2**  
Characters/Pairings**: Baralai, Paine; Baralai/Paine  
**Author's Notes**: Written for the first challenge at Eye Dialogue, a Baralai/Paine community on LiveJournal. The challenge is to write a fic, any length, that begins with the phrase: _She couldn't understand why he was being so difficult. _And oh my god, it is so Friends. Haha. Didn't do that on purpose, but I guess that's what happens after you marathon three seasons straight.

* * *

She couldn't understand why he was being so difficult. It was a simple request, really.

"Step aside, Baralai." Her arms were crossed in that no-nonsense way, her lips in a terse white line, her eyes level with his, silently testing him.

"No," his voice was infuriatingly steady, "I won't let you do this."

Paine felt torn between wanting to sigh and wanting to yell. "I don't want to hurt you," pause for effect, hesitation, deliberation, she wasn't sure, "but I will if I have to."

She wanted him to cross his arms, put his weight on one foot, pace, _anything_. He just stood stone still, completely calm in the way only Yevonites could be in the face of danger. "You have no right to –"

"I have every right," she cut across him. "I'm only taking back what was stolen."

"I didn't steal it."

"You didn't ask for it," she said, stepping forward; he did not move. "That's as good as stealing."

"Paine..." His voice was sympathetic.

"Baralai," she said sternly. "Step aside."

"No."

"Move!" Paine marched forward until her face was inches from his. She couldn't mirror his neutral expression so didn't bother trying. "I won't warn you again."

"I cannot seriously believe you would –"

"Enough," she muttered and shoved past him, shoulder roughly colliding with his. He didn't stumble, only stepped out of her way, sighing and shaking his head. Paine thundered to the fridge and opened it, inspected it for a few seconds, and turned to face him, more annoyed than ever. "Where is it?"

He smiled just the slightest bit and finished, "I cannot seriously believe you would think I'd leave our last star fruit right where you would find it."


	2. FFX: RikkuWakka

**Title**: Earthbound**  
Series**: Final Fantasy X**  
Characters/Pairings**: Rikku, Wakka; Rikku/Wakka  
**Author's Notes**: Written for the Final Fantasy Kissing Challenge on LJ for Valentine's Day. The challenge is to write a requested pairing and involve a kiss in some way. Pairing requested by **siva360**. Fun fact: Originally titled "Happy McAlister and Señor O'Grumpypants."

* * *

Their journey stretched on and on. They walked farther from Besaid, farther into where the seasons showed change, father away from where life was a repeating cycle of sun and sand. It was autumn where they were, and that was all they knew. If one could divine location from the fiery shades of leaves, perhaps Auron wouldn't be so sour, or Tidus so guilty that he'd gotten them lost.

Rikku didn't mind, not really. She sat off to the side, weaving leaf stems on a stump and listening to the forest rustle. You couldn't hear these kinds of sounds at Home, couldn't feel your skin prickle with chill. It was different, and Rikku had nothing against different.

Wakka, however, looked positively displeased. He had his back to her, bark pressing grooves into his shoulder as he leaned against a tree, arms crossed.

"What's got your sandals in a knot?" she asked, looking up her wreath of leaves.

"I don't like fall," he replied simply.

She always found Wakka curious, but never more so than just then. "Why not?"

He sighed – with exasperation or irritation, she wasn't sure – and turned to her. "It's when things die."

Quirking an eyebrow, Rikku set the crown down and stood up, dusting off her shorts. She delighted in the snap of twigs and crunch of copper-colored leaves under her feet as she approached him.

"That's one way to look at it, but the way I see it," a leaf fluttered down, and she caught it nimbly between two fingers, smiling, "it's when things fly." She held up the leaf and twirled it, one side roan red and the other gold.

Wakka scoffed and looked away, the way he did when he didn't want to admit to being mistaken about something. "That only works for leaves, ya?"

Rikku grinned, stood up on her toes, then placed the leaf to her mouth and kissed him. His eyes immediately flew back to her, to stare in surprise for the moment he could feel her lips through the veiny texture of the leaf. Then she fell back onto her heels and smiled wider. "Don't have to be off the ground to fly, y'know."


	3. FFXII: ReksPenelo

**Title**: A Bit of Sun**  
Series**: Final Fantasy XII**  
Characters/Pairings**: Penelo, Reks; Reks/Penelo  
**Author's Notes**: Written for the Final Fantasy Kissing Challenge on LJ for Valentine's Day. The challenge is to write a requested pairing and involve a kiss in some way. Pairing requested by **mariagoner**. M'gana asks: Why am I so laaaame?

* * *

It was her fault and she knew it. She wandered into the wrong part of Lowtown (some would argue there was no right part of Lowtown, but she knew better). She wanted to get him something special for his birthday, something he hadn't seen before. After listening to the underground word, she found out about a little cart in the west catacombs. By then it was so close to his birthday that she said nothing, just threw on a cloak, grabbed her satchel, and went off in search.

The stories were true. The stand was small, but the rings and bracelets lain on its surface shone like stars. It was like someone had taken a bit of sun and hidden it all the way down here. She bought the only thing she could afford – a silver ring, with a blue stone on it that reminded her of twilight – and left.

Getting there hadn't been a problem, but coming back was. Apparently, everyone knew if you visited the sun shop – which meant everyone knew you had money. She wasn't far from home when she was cornered by three seedy looking men with eyes for her coin purse. It was pure luck Reks was down there, trading information between Old Dalan and Migelo, and came to her aid. Penelo could only handle one of the thieves and Reks took out the other two – not without injury, though.

"I'm sorry," she told him later, pressing a wet cloth to his bloodied hand. "I should've been more careful."

"They shouldn't have attacked you," he said kindly, wincing when the cloth padded a cut earned from the skirmish. "What were you doing down there, anyway?"

Penelo smiled grimly, cleaning the knife wound. "It's your birthday tomorrow, so…"

He sighed. "You didn't have to do that. You know I don't like it when people buy me things."

"You'll like this," she told him, thinking, _And I can't exactly return it._

"Penelo…"

"I know." She draped the cloth over the bucket's rim and looked guiltily at his hand. "I just thought you deserved something nice."

He lifted his hand from her knee, cradling her cheek in his bruised palm. She looked at him with wet eyelashes, searched his grey eyes.

"I have something nice," he said, and smiled.

She couldn't help it; her lips tugged into a foolish grin and she put her hands over his, placing a light kiss to his palm. "Me too."


	4. FFXII&KH: VaanYuffie

**Title**: First Places and Shoelaces**  
Series**: Crossover: Final Fantasy XII/Kingdom Hearts**  
Characters/Pairings**: Skypirate!Vaan, Yuffie; Vaan/Yuffie  
**Author's Notes**: Written for the drabble form thing on my personal LJ. Pairing requested by **Logistika Nyx**, prompt being: "Out-do me? Please!"

* * *

He thinks, with bitterness and jealousy and _damn how can she run so fast,_ that maybe he should spend more time on the ground than in the sky. Because right now she's just a blur of black leather and rubber-soled shoes ahead of him, laces and laughs and little dares that make him sweat more than the exhaustive pumping of his legs does.

"You have to be cheating somehow!" he wheezes. How nice it would be to stop, but how _not_ nice to lose. Especially when the stakes are so high, his pride sitting pretty in a golden chalice only they can see. So he ambles on, feels his muscles spark and burst into painful flame and tell him, _Warn us before you do this next time._

"If you can't catch me, it's not my fault!" Her voice is half laugh, half hitching rush of air that makes him think maybe she's tired too. But she just keeps going, and going, and going, and he just keeps slowing, and slowing, and slowing.

This is why pirates need partners, he thinks. Partners who will help you out when there are obnoxious little girls going around _stealing stuff_. His mind conjures the image of Penelo, reclining in a comfortable chair in the Sandsea, drinking something sinfully cold and just a tiny bit alcoholic. He licks his lips between breaths, and stumbles on.

_Even Balthier couldn't run this much with half of Archadia on his tail…_

He's watching the subtle rise and fall of the ground so intently he almost smacks right into her. (That's the way he tells it to Penelo days later, when in truth and at present he is in a messy knot of arms and legs and _just how long are her shoelaces?_)

Yuffie is laughing, head thrown back in joyful abandon, sunlight on her face. He's not at all amused, and he's redder than a tomato, and he can't feel his body from the knees down, but for some reason his lips split into a grin and he laughs out the few breaths he's taken in.

"One of these days," he says when he needs air again, but she's still laughing, still tinkling like a bell, "I'll outdo you."

She doesn't reply, but trembles even harder with the force of her amusement – but he doesn't frown, instead smiles and nudges her playfully and thinks how losing pride is stupid, as he never really had any around girls in the first place.


	5. FFX2&KH: LeonPaine

**Title**: Warriors**  
Series**: Crossover: Final Fantasy X-2/Kingdom Hearts**  
Characters/Pairings**: Leon, Paine ; Leon/Paine  
**Author's Notes**: Written for the drabble form thing on my personal LJ. Pairing requested by **sapereaude13**, prompt being: warriors.

* * *

The world doesn't stop with a drop of blood. She reminds him of this; he in turn reminds her it's not a "drop of blood" as she so bluntly puts it – it's a hole running right through her heart. She thinks he's just being stubborn.

The pain is constant, like a serpent constricting her and squeezing the life out, but each moment she feels less and less. Anger and regret, usually so poignant, begin to dull. Paine feels her heart leak out of her, fighting against the bonds of flesh and ribs. His body, pressed so close to hers she can see her breath on his leather, struggles to keep it in. But the darkness is there, the shadow of love she's never once denied. It erodes the chains around itself and claws upward.

"Get off me," she says between the coppery sting of blood. "Get off me. Go fight."

He reads between her words. "You'll be fine." She hates it.

"I'm losing," she tells him, forcing steel into her voice. "I don't want you to see me lose."

"You're winning."

"You're delusional." They come, bitter tears she doesn't want, balancing on her eyelashes and not daring to go farther. The darkness is screaming now, cackling like a hyena in heat. It can taste freedom.

"Just wait for Aerith," he says. To anyone else, his voice is level, calm, steady. To her it is too damn aware of how near she is to the end. "Keep fighting."

"Don't tell me to keep fighting," the words come harder, but she forces them out anyway, "when you're just sitting here. Get out there. Kick some ass."

"Just wait."

"I have been waiting," Paine says. "I'm a warrior. That's all we do. We wait for death."

"Stop talking. You're only –"

"Get off me." The darkness digs its fingers into her flesh, breathes fresh air through blood, hears the beat of another heart struggling to thrust it back in. Paine loses the strength to push Leon away, but doesn't wish she'd done it earlier.

"I'll miss you," she tells him. Without giving him time to respond, she says, "If I become one of those things, kill me yourself. I couldn't stand losing to Yuffie."

He chuckles, just once, and she knows it's for her. "I will."

"Thank you."

The darkness laughs, and cries, and dances in victory.


	6. FFXII&HP: Larsa&Luna&Penelo

**Title**: Common Sense**  
Series**: Crossover: Final Fantasy XII/Harry Potter**  
Characters**: Larsa, Luna, Penelo  
**Author's Notes**: Written for the drabble form thing on my personal LJ. Pairing requested by **mariagoner**, prompt being: Penelo and Luna teaming up to create havoc in Archades, while Larsa looks on.

* * *

Nargles.

Larsa, who prides himself in his patience, is so insufferably _sick_ of that word. Not the being itself – it's quite obvious it doesn't exist. But the two syllables spun from that dreamy tongue are enough to give the silly concept life, and hands with which to claw at Larsa's ears.

"Don't be angry with her," Penelo tells him, voice gentle but warning. "She's just a kid."

"She's your age!" And within that is the unspoken argument: _She's five years my senior, and even I don't believe in this nonsense._

"She's imaginative," Penelo argues. "Let her be creative. She and Vaan will only be here a few days while he gets in touch with some informants of Balthier's."

"I'm going to pretend very fervently that I did not just hear that, and am in no way conscious of pirating in Archades," he says evenly. Somewhere mid-sentence, the bright blonde in question had walked in, her dreamy gaze drawn to concern.

"Having trouble hearing?" she asks, tiptoeing forward. Larsa thinks there's something about her never quite in balance, mentally or physically. "Wrackspurts, probably." She turns to Penelo. "Do you have any cotton balls? You block out the sounds and Wrackspurts become tired. Very effective for getting rid of them, and much cheaper than Wrackspurt-B-Gone."

"How counterproductive," mutters Larsa.

Penelo smiles. "I'm sure Larsa can take care of it. He's handled worse than Wrackspurts."

Luna's frown deepens. "Oh, I hope not… Crumple-Horned Snorkacks?"

Larsa wishes he hadn't heard that. "Luna, while I appreciate your advice, I really must insist that there is no such thing –"

Penelo cuts in, "As an Archadian Crumple-Horned Snorkack."

Silvery-blue eyes widen in mirth, pearl pink lips releasing a laugh. "Well, of course there aren't any Archadian Crumple-Horned Snorkacks! I'm not stupid, you know."

And how Larsa would love for Nargles to be useful for once, and take Luna away as they so often did her belongings.


End file.
